Yay for chapter four! Sorry this one took a bit long. I've been busy with a bunch of silly little stuff. This one's long (for me) though, so hopefully that will make up for it. A bit more explaining done, hopefully a few questions answered, and a taste of this planet's government. I will admit, half of the stuff in this chapter was unplanned and just sort of wrote itself in – Terrania has already changed a lot from my original view of it. But I really like what it's becoming; I hope you guys do too. I want to thank both Yoda1976 and Golden Snowflake for their consistent reviews. Both of you guys are helping me out a lot, both by encouraging me to keep going and helping direct me with your comments and questions. :) And to all my other reviewers, same to you, thanks a lot. I love to know people like my writing. I hope you all enjoy this chapter, and please keep the reviews coming!
Chapter Four
Ahsoka perched on a fence post, swinging her good leg idly as she watched Manny try to catch a baby Eqqulen – a large hoofed quadruped of varying color and appearance; this particular one was a sort of grayish-green, with a richer, almost turquoise-tinted green mane and tail, and little shimmering insectoid wings. He was strangely adorable, she had to admit. Manny had told her they raised them as beasts of burden, and for riding, and one variety even produced milk. This one, though, had escaped from the paddock and now only seemed to want to play; she giggled as Manny chased the little thing in circles, unable to catch it.
"You think it's funny, do you? I'd like to see you catch this thing, kid," Manny muttered, shooting her a half-glare. She grinned cheekily and motioned innocently to her bandaged leg.
"Well, usually I would, but…"
"Yeah, yeah, excuses. Ask me, you shouldn't even be outside. S'risky, I don't care if the help's got the day off or not. 'Course, no one ever asks me…" He grunted as he tried to grab the Eqqulen's halter and the little thing dodged again with a playful neigh. "Dangit, Swiftwing, we named you right."
Two more days had passed, nearly a week altogether since she'd been brought here. Things were finally clearing up. The haze was still present, but she'd sort of figured it out – something here was throwing off the Force, and that's what had left her feeling so confused. She'd never experienced a block in the Force before; it was hugely disorienting, especially because it seemed to be throwing off her spatial senses too, whatever it was. Everything had made a lot more sense once she'd remembered that, once she'd figured it out. Once you knew the Force, everything else sort of fell into place. She was a member of the Republic, a Commander in the Clone Wars despite her age. Not a slave or servant, but a Jedi Padawan. She and her Master had been shot down over this planet by some new Separatist ships they'd never seen before. There were still some holes, but she was figuring things out, much to her relief. Even though the more she figured out, the more wrong things felt. Something was off here, there was something she was missing, but she just couldn't place anything specific.
She hadn't told Keida and Manny much of it. She couldn't really say why. There was just something in the back of her mind that told her it might not be a bad thing for them to think she was some sort of servant girl, to not know the details of the war, to not know she was a Padawan whose Master had gone missing and who was facing some strange barrier in the Force. It wasn't really that she didn't trust them… really. They'd given her no reason not to trust them. She'd just learned to trust her instincts first. And her instincts told her that caution was prudent on a planet she knew nothing about with a race she likewise knew little about, especially when the planet appeared to be guarded by the bad guys. At least until she found out more and could formulate some plan of action – and was actually in good enough condition to manage anything of the sort – it might be best to keep a few secrets.
Terrania was odd – primitive. And a strange sort of primitive, too – not like Kashyyyk was primitive, but somehow even more so, yet less so at the same time. Of course, she only had this one little farm to judge by, but… the technology they had was so… backwards! And yet, it was somehow intriguing, too; she'd spent three hours the day before watching little flat moving pictures on the 'T.V.' unit – she'd never heard of a Teevee droid before, and it seemed terribly basic, with only one real function – trying to figure out why the pictures were flat on a viewing screen when holograms would be so much more practical, albeit less colorful. But all this stuff was so primitive! Their comm. units were annoying ringing things that only carried voices, no images; their lighting was mostly candles, and old-fashioned electric bulbs – Such energy gulpers! – in strange-looking lamps. And as far as any intergalactic technology – like spacecraft – went, Keida claimed they didn't have any. Not even any droids – well, nothing more advanced than the weird little Teevee in the main room. They had landspeeders, and a couple of hovercraft-sounding vehicles, but that was it. She couldn't understand how they could have some things but be missing so many others; it was mind-boggling. But at least as far as civilization went, they seemed to be decently modern, from what she'd been told. So, there was that.
The weirdest thing so far was how little her hosts actually knew about… about everything. They knew there were other planets out there, of course, but that was about as far as it went. They'd never left their own planet; they had no clue about all the worlds out there. They thought theirs was the only inhabited planet, for crying out loud! When she'd told them how many planets there were, and how many different 'alien' races there were besides just Togruta, they'd looked overwhelmed. And when she tried to explain any of the technology, from bacta to spaceships to something as simple as a blaster, they'd seem confounded by how 'advanced' it all was – especially Manny, who had sat shaking his head and muttering about alien technology and conspiracy theories until Keida had elbowed him to shut him up. To tell the truth, Ahsoka was astounded too, but of course for a completely different reason – how could they just not know any of this? It was yet another thing about this entire situation that was just somehow wrong.
She took comfort in the firm belief that her Master was still alive and safe. She had little doubt in her mind that she'd know if he'd been killed. She might not be able to sense him, reach him, but she knew he was alive, the same way she'd known Master Plo had survived, the same way she'd known how to disarm those bombs on Kiros. She didn't try to explain it or reason it out, she just believed and left it at that. As long as he was alive, he'd find her, and together they'd figure out what wasn't right, and how to get off this strange planet and back where they were supposed to be.
"Dangit, beast, stay still!" Manny's voice pulled her from her musings.
"Aw, he just wants to play," she defended the little creature.
"Yeah, well, we've played. Now I need to get this lead on him 'fore he decides to go runnin' off 'cross the Plain." Despite his outward irritation, Ahsoka could tell that Manny was a bit amused at the whole thing himself. He wasn't as gruff as he liked to act, and it was clear he was fond of his animals, perhaps better with them than with people as a whole. She liked Manny – he sort of reminded her of Master Obi-wan, in a way. He was wise behind his simple appearance and speech, and kind-hearted even if he liked to act all rough, and he wasn't nearly as intimidating as she'd first feared – in fact, he was a big softie when you got right down to it.
"Why don't you get him a treat so he'll come to you?" She suggested. Manny paused, and blinked, and Ahsoka grinned slightly at the look on his face as he realized he should have thought of that a while ago.
"S'bad enough that he's gone and run outta the fence, without me rewarding him for it," he muttered, shaking his head, but conceded. "Grab me a karrot, will ya, Red?" 'Red' seemed to have become an addition to 'kid' when he wanted to address her. She chose to consider it a term of endearment rather than insult to her pigmentation. She'd admit she had been a bit insulted the first time he'd said it – until she heard him call one of the Eqquli, a dark rose-toned stallion named Skyfeather, 'Pinky', and then she'd realized it was just another nickname. After that, it just became amusing.
She carefully slid off the fence post, moving slowly so as to avoid any undue pain and balancing on one leg as she reached for the walking stick she'd been using as a crutch. "Oh, sure, send the cripple on an errand," she quipped, limping over to the basket containing the long orange vegetables and bending awkwardly to get one. Ugh, I'm gonna be so glad when I can actually move again… She straightened stiffly and turned to deliver the karrot. Swiftwing noticed what she had before she'd gotten back to give it to Manny and pranced over to her, nickering; she giggled. "He's not so hard to catch; I don't know what your problem was."
"He likes you better'n he likes me, darn thing." Manny moved to clip the lead to Swiftwing's halter as the Eqqulen munched on the karrot Ahsoka held out to him. He ruffled the creature's mane. "We'll get him trained up yet, though, no worries. Pretty soon them wings'll be good an' strong and he'll be pullin' the cloud-harvesters with the best of 'em."
"Cloud-harvesters?" Ahsoka asked, glancing over at him, and then up at the yellow-tinted clouds in the oddly purple-ish sky.
"Yep. Kinda like big flying vacuums. These guys pull 'em to suck up the clouds. Clouds are a special type of water, see, got some sorta mineral or somethin' that don't come down in the rain; it's lost in the condensation. But if we collect it right as clouds we can refine the mineral outta 'em, an' it's real healthy, used in a lot of bio-stuff I don't right understand. But it sells good, and that's all I need to know. Everyone uses it… hospitals, military, even us common folk." Manny glanced over at her. "All the food we produce does us good, but that mineral – it's called Kirotin – is our main source of income. S'what Kei's been usin' on you, Red. It's why you're healin' up so quick."
"Not quick enough," she muttered wryly, half-glaring down at her still-aching leg. Manny chuckled, turning to lead Swiftwing back into the domed paddock, set up to give the Eqquli room to wander and graze while the large, bubble-like dome kept the flying ones from being able to escape.
"Well, it'll patch up. Still say it'd do better if you weren't walkin' 'round on it…"
"I was bored," Ahsoka said defensively, "and Keida said I should come see the Eqquli since the farmhands weren't around…"
"I know, kid, I know. All I'm sayin' is, we're givin' up some of our harvest to fix you up, I'll be a bit irked if you go an' make it worse on me, eh?" She hung her head slightly, so he smiled over at her to soften the words. "Ah, what do I know, you're a tough little thing. You'll do fine." Ahsoka recognized in this statement that she'd been pardoned, and smiled back.
She noticed the sound first. A ringing, high-pitched whine, hollow and strange, carried over the plains by the wind and getting louder fast. For a moment it was easy to write it off as some sort of background noise and ignore it, but within a minute it had become much to piercing to do that. Manny froze as soon as he heard it, something like fear crossing his expression; Ahsoka put her hands over her ears. "Oh, stang, what is that?" But Manny didn't answer; he was too busy pulling the paddock gate closed, cursing under his breath.
"Go to the barn," he ordered her sharply, pointing behind him at the large red building as he scrambled for the gate locks.
"What, why?" she asked, confused, hands still over her ears to block the sound, which had risen to something of a hollow shriek.
"Damnit, Red, don't ask questions, get movin'!" He was nearly shouting now, partially just to be heard above the noise. Still confused but detecting the frantic note in his voice, she turned to head for the barn as quickly as she could, ignoring the pain in her leg and noticing for the first time exactly how much it slowed her down to have to walk with a crutch. She'd only gotten about halfway there by the time Manny finished with the locks and dashed after her; she gave a startled yelp as he scooped her up into his arms and sprinted the rest of the distance to the barn. She couldn't help but feel embarrassed; maybe she was slow, but she wasn't helpless. She could walk on her own!
"What's going on?" she asked as he set her down. He shushed her before she'd even finished the question.
"No time. Stay in here. Hide… hide somewhere, don't come out, whatever you do. Don't make any noise, and do not go near any of the windows or open the door for anythin', no matter what. Got it?"
"But…"
He grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her to look him in the eyes. "Don't ask questions, Ahsoka, just do what I say! Hide, and stay quiet!"
She gulped and nodded, and he released her, darting out of the barn and pulling the doors firmly shut behind him, leaving her standing there feeling distinctly frightened and still not knowing why. She heard the clang of the bar as he pushed the lock into place, and this extra burst of caution only increased her nervousness.
This was her first time in the barn, so she had no clue where to go. She looked around frantically for a hiding spot. It was disorienting; without her spatial senses working quite right she had to rely on her eyes and guesstimates for distance and room. There were some vehicles in here, tractors and plows and something she guessed might be the cloud-harvester; in the back were pieces of equipment she'd never seen before but could make an educated assumption that they must have something to do with getting the Kirotin out of the clouds. A soft thrumming noise came from the machinery, barely audible over the shriek outdoors, yet somehow calming. She drew in a deep breath and forced herself to relax a bit. A good amount of the food harvests were kept in here too – it would be easy for her to hide among the crates. They were tall enough, and it looked like there was enough room between them. She headed for them, taking note of the position of a cracked window nearby and avoiding it as she'd been told to.
She wasn't sure how long she remained sheltered amongst the crates, keeping as still as she could. Long enough for her leg to start throbbing horribly and her side to begin aching from the strain of the crouched-over position. After a few minutes that felt a lot longer than they were the shrieking sound had died off, and she'd been very tempted to leave the barn and find out what was going on, but Jedi discipline kicked in – as it so rarely did – and she decided grudgingly that this was probably one of those 'follow orders' times when she should wait for someone to come and get her. It eventually became apparent this was a good idea once she heard the voices from outside, sounding through the nearby window.
While Manny's voice was instantly recognizable, she had no clue who the other voices belonged to. For that matter, she couldn't even quite make them out. While Manny's voice was clear, the others seemed strangely muffled, leaving her only able to make out half of the conversation. But that was enough.
"A crash, you say? Out in the Plain? Now I wouldn't be knowin' much of anythin' 'bout that. There were some bright light come fallin' down in the middle of the night, about a week ago. We thought it was a shootin' star… but I think I remember some noises too." The muffled voices said something, then Manny spoke again. "No, we didn't go lookin' for nothin'. We got a full schedule goin' on here, with the Kirotin shortage goin' on; we don't got time to go trampin' 'round in the fields after shootin' stars or meteors or whatever it was. What was it, anyways?" A sharp response, then, "Sorry, Agent, just wonderin'." More muffled talk, a bit more forceful now. "I'm tellin' ya, Agent, we didn't go lookin' for nothin', and we didn't find nothin'. 'Cept for seein' the light, we hardly knew anythin' happened. It's been business as normal here, nothin' weird at all, nothin' that'd interest you all. We're just a simple farm."
For a second there was silence, then footsteps accompanying voices, then a loud thump at the barn door that made her jump, and then cower lower among the crates. Manny's voice sounded again, sounding distinctly irritated now. "Hey, you got no right to go in there." The voices argued back. "I know, Agents, but this farmer knows the law. You ain't got no warrant." Pause for response. "I got nothin' to hide. That in there's where we refine the Kirotin. I'm sure you know what a delicate process it is, an' how easy it is to contaminate it if somethin' goes wrong in the middle of the work. What with the shortage goin' on, seems to me it wouldn't be worth it to let anyone go trampin' 'round in there without good reason when I told you full well there ain't nothin' goin' on."
This line of argument went on for a bit longer, a back-and-forth she could only hear one side of. Her mind was racing. These 'Agents'… must be government of some sort, she guessed. And they were asking questions about weird things happening, a week ago – they were asking about her pod crashing. And Manny was flat-out lying. For some reason, that concerned her more than anything else.
On a whim, driven by a growing irritation at her inability to make out the Agents' words, Ahsoka made an attempt to reach out through the Force, to try to sense what was going on with these people, what their motives were. If she concentrated hard, she could penetrate the haze a little; she knew this from practice when she was alone. Maybe if she could push through it enough, she could find out… the barrier was sudden and shocking. There was no other way she could describe it but a barrier – like she'd hit a wall. She literally felt it like a shield around these Agents, something she couldn't describe and had never felt before, something that broke her concentration instantly and left her sitting with head aching and mind reeling.
Slowly focus returned, enough that she could hear the last bits of the argument outside – Manny determinedly refusing to allow the Agents into the barn – or the stables, or the house, or into any building on the property without the proper warrant. "With all due respect, you got no reason to search our property, Agents, we ain't done nothin' wrong."
There were more voices and she could tell they weren't happy, but then came the footsteps and they were walking away. She felt a slight relief, but couldn't quite relax. After another few minutes the whining sound began again, this time raising almost immediately to a shriek and then fading away slowly as more minutes ticked by; she covered her ears again and huddled there, strangely overwhelmed by an unexplainable fear. What were they, what was this place, with barriers that made the Force hazy and stopped it altogether, that took away the thing she'd always been connected to? By the stars, what was this? And what did they want with her, and why did it scare her so much? Since when did she get so… unfocussed, so thrown off? She closed her eyes. Master, where are you? She'd never felt quite so alone.
Finally the whining faded, though she did not move. She sat in place, still and quiet, until she heard the lock being undone and the barn door scraping as it was pushed open, and still frightened she remained in place, holding her breath, waiting.
"Red?" Manny's voice sent a pang of relief through her so strong it almost made her dizzy.
"Here," She answered, standing a bit shakily; her side was hurting, and her leg throbbed in protest to the movement.
Manny crossed the distance to her in a few quick strides, looking rather relieved himself. "Thank the Light. Damn AA's… I thought they were gonna bust their way right in… you alright, kid?"
She nodded slowly. "Y-yeah… who were they? What did they want?"
He sighed. "They're the government, Red, and they want you." She didn't have a response to this; he shook his head slightly. "But, they're gone for now. Come on… you're all shaky." She glanced down at her hands, a bit embarrassed to discover he was right – she was shaking a bit. "S'nuff excitement for one day. Let's get you off that leg, eh? Keida's gonna be out of her mind worryin' 'bout you, I'm sure." She looked up at him, and he offered a small smile in an attempt to be comforting. "I'll explain when we get to the house, alright?"
She nodded, though some part of her wasn't at all sure she really wanted an explanation. "Okay." And Manny scooped her into his arms again and headed for the house, and this time the embarrassment was hardly there – she had too many other things to consider than to worry about being embarrassed. "Manny?"
"Yeah?"
She wasn't sure what to say. He'd just lied to his government for her. He'd given up his study for her, he'd let her sit out on the fence while he chased the Eqquli, he'd hidden her in his barn. And he'd faced those Agents – she could tell, whether through the Force or just through instinct, that he was scared of them. But he'd faced them, and lied to them, and sent them away, for the alien that was taking up a room of his house. "…Thank you."
There was a pause for a moment, then he sighed slightly, and smiled at her. "You're welcome, Red." After all, he really was a big softie, when you got right down to it.